Hug a Drupalista this Valentine’s Day

I’ve had this post percolating in my head, since attending a JavaScript/HTML5 hackathon last year. An event where the host made a made a joke about ‘Drupal development’ implying a project and community working in ‘innovation past’. I apologetically sank into my seat. Not only was I one of only 3 women in a room of 80 hackers, I was also a PHP Drupal developer – double-shot of isolation.

I get it though – I’ve participated in my own share of code-snobbery it’s entertaining, it lets us vent coding horrors of past. For every project inherited with hacked architecture, sloppy coding, lazy implementation, and careless regard for standards there there is the developer cursing that project. I’m sorry you worked with a hacked-core version of Drupal – we’re against that by the way.

But it feels like more than just this one event, code-snobbery directed at Drupal is starting to wear on me a bit.

Here are my reasons why no matter your specialty, your project, your favorite language, or where on the bleeding-edge you live – the Drupal project is to be respected, and perhaps even envied. I expect hugs.

Community

The Drupal community, is amazing and I have often joked that Drupal was my ‘gateway drug’ to open source. We are a diverse, passionate, group-hug of thousands(and thousands, and thousands) inspired by the prospect of writing software that helps people, organizations, institutions and individuals. Drupal community was one of the first I saw address gender inequality in open source (also we’re still working on it). I think the passion to help people was hugely evident when a code sprint at DrupalCon Portland created to a Drupal site to help FEMA assist the victims of the Oklahoma tornado.

Drupal.org is also an enviable organization of organically forming groups focused on everything from regional meetups, project-focused ambitions and industry. Anyone can create a group, invite others and create events. The Drupal community is highly accessible, helpful and motivated.

Experts Everywhere

Drupal has a Security Team. In just the last week there were 2,759 code commits, and those were likely made from almost every industry and technology focus you can imagine. Experts in media make Drupal media modules – experts in publishing make Drupal, experts in education, government, make Drupal. Technical writers, document Drupal – and community initiatives seek to attract more. Truthfully one of Drupal’s biggest strengths is the clarity on contribution pathways through many things including the Drupal 8 Ladder, which I reference all the time when talking to other communities pathways. Drupal cares about localization.

I spent this week contributing to a module that brings Isotope layouts to Drupal. People developing Drupal are not stuck in the 2006, to name at least one cliche I’ve heard – we are innovators, we’re out in other open source communities contributing,collaborating and ultimately critics of our own work. We strive to keep Drupal a solution that helps people, while utilizing the best the open web has to offer.

DrupalCon is where I first learned about Mozilla Open Badges, where my idea for Open Royal Roads was ignited, and the first time I saw Mitchell Baker speak live-and-in-person :)

We Play Nice

We’re committed to the future and innovation of the open web, we hope you’ll make us feel welcome. I might even be brave enough to go to another JS conference.